Akutagawa Prize

The Akutagawa Prize (芥川龍之介賞) is a Japanese literary award presented biannually. Because of its prestige and the considerable attention the winner receives from the media, it is, along with the Naoki Prize, one of Japan's most sought after literary prizes.

History
The Akutagawa Prize was established in 1935 by Kan Kikuchi, then-editor of Bungeishunjū magazine, in memory of author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. It is sponsored by the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature, and is awarded in January and July to the best serious literary story published in a newspaper or magazine by a new or rising author. The winner receives a pocket watch and a cash award of 1 million yen. The judges usually include contemporary writers, literary critics, and former winners of the prize. Occasionally, when consensus cannot be reached between judges over disputes about the winning story or the quality of work for that half year, no prize is awarded. From 1945 through 1948 no prizes were awarded due to postwar instability. The prize has frequently been split between two authors.

On January 15, 2004, the awarding of the 130th Akutagawa Prize made significant news when two women became the award's youngest winners. The prize went to both Risa Wataya, 19, for her novel I Want to Kick You in the Back (蹴りたい背中) and to Hitomi Kanehara, 20, for her debut novel Snakes and Earrings (蛇にピアス). Previously the youngest Akutagawa winners were all males over 23 years old, among them the former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and novelist Kenzaburō Ōe. In 2013 Natsuko Kuroda won the 148th Akutagawa Prize at age 75, making her the oldest recipient in the history of the prize.

Controversies
In 1972, Akutagawa winner Akio Miyahara was found to have committed plagiarism. In 2018, a similar controversy occurred when the candidate novel Utsukushii Kao by Yuko Hojo was found to have reused text from its nonfiction source material without attribution, but the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature did not remove the book from the candidate list.

Winners
Bungeishunjū maintains an official archive of current and past winners on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature.

Winners available in English translation

 * 1936 (4th) - Jun Ishikawa, The Bodhisattva (trans. William J. Tyler, Columbia University Press, 1990)
 * 1949 (22nd) - Yasushi Inoue, The Bullfight (trans. Michael Emmerich, Pushkin Press, 2013)
 * 1958 (39th) - Kenzaburō Ōe, Prize Stock (In Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, trans. John Nathan, Grove Press, 1977)
 * 1963 (49th) - Kōno Taeko, Crabs (In Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories, trans. Lucy North, New Directions Publishing, 1996)
 * 1965 (53rd) - Setsuko Tsumura, Playthings (In Japan Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, trans. Kyoko Evanhoe and Robert N. Lawson, 1980)
 * 1967 (57th) - Tatsuhiro Ōshiro, The Cocktail Party (In Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas, trans. Steve Rabson, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1989)
 * 1970 (64th) - Yoshikichi Furui, Yoko (In Child of Darkness: Yoko and Other Stories, trans. Donna George Storey, University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, 1997)
 * 1972 (68th) - Shizuko Gō, Requiem (trans. Geraldine Harcourt, Kodansha International, 1983)
 * 1975 (73rd) - Kyoko Hayashi, Ritual of Death (In Nuke Rebuke: Writers and Artists against Nuclear Energy and Weapons, trans. Kyoko Selden, The Spirit That Moves Us Press, 1984)
 * 1975 (74th) - Kenji Nakagami, The Cape (In The Cape and other stories from the Japanese Ghetto, trans. Eve Zimmerman, Stonebridge Press, 1999)
 * 1976 (75th) - Ryū Murakami, Almost Transparent Blue (trans. Nancy Andrew, Kodansha International, 1977)
 * 1979 (81st) - Yoshiko Shigekane, The Smoke in the Mountain Valley (In Mississippi Review, vol. 39, no. 1/3, trans. John Wilson and Motoko Naruse, 2012)
 * 1981 (85th) - Rie Yoshiyuki, The Little Lady (In Japanese Literature Today, no. 7, trans. Geraldine Harcourt, 1982)
 * 1984 (92nd) - Satoko Kizaki, The Phoenix Tree (In The Phoenix Tree and Other Stories, trans. Carol A. Flath, Kodansha International, 1990)
 * 1987 (97th) - Kiyoko Murata, In the Pot (In Japanese Women Writers: Twentieth Century Short Fiction, trans. Kyoko Iriye Seldon, Routledge, 2015)
 * 1987 (98th) - Natsuki Ikezawa, Still Life (In Still Lives, trans. Dennis Keene, Kodansha International, 1997)
 * 1990 (104th) - Yōko Ogawa, Pregnancy Diary (In The Diving Pool, trans. Stephen Snyder, Picador, 2008)
 * 1992 (108th) - Yoko Tawada, The Bridegroom was a Dog (In The Bridegroom was a Dog, trans. Margaret Mitsutani, Kodansha International, 2003)
 * 1993 (110th) - Hikaru Okuizumi, The Stones Cry Out (trans. James Westerhoven, Harcourt, 1999)
 * 1996 (115th) - Hiromi Kawakami, Record of a Night Too Brief (trans. Lucy North, Pushkin Press, 2017)
 * 1997 (117th) - Shun Medoruma, Droplets (In Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, trans. Michael Molasky, University of Hawaii Press, 2000)
 * 2000 (124th) - Toshiyuki Horie, The Bear and the Paving Stone (In The Bear and the Paving Stone, trans. Geraint Howells, Pushkin Press, 2018)
 * 2003 (130th)
 * Hitomi Kanehara, Snakes and Earrings (trans. David Karashima, Dutton, 2005)
 * Risa Wataya, I Want to Kick You in the Back (trans. Julianne Neville, One Peace Books, 2015)
 * 2005 (133rd) - Fuminori Nakamura, The Boy in the Earth (trans. Allison Markin Powell, Soho Crime, 2017)
 * 2005 (134th) - Akiko Itoyama, Waiting in the Offing (In Words Without Borders, April 2007, trans. Charles de Wolf)
 * 2006 (136th) - Nanae Aoyama, A Perfect Day to Be Alone (trans. Jesse Kirkwood, MacLehose Press, 2024)
 * 2012 (147th) - Maki Kashimada, Touring the Land of the Dead (trans. Haydn Trowell, Europa Editions, 2021)
 * 2013 (149th) - Kaori Fujino, Nails and Eyes (trans. Kendall Heitzman, Pushkin Press, 2023)
 * 2013 (150th) - Hiroko Oyamada, The Hole (trans. David Boyd, New Directions Publishing, 2020)
 * 2014 (151st) - Tomoka Shibasaki, Spring Garden (trans. Polly Barton, Pushkin Press, 2017)
 * 2016 (155th) - Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori, Grove Press, 2018)

Current members of the selection committee and year appointed

 * Amy Yamada, 2003
 * Hiromi Kawakami, 2007
 * Yōko Ogawa, 2007
 * Masahiko Shimada, 2010
 * Toshiyuki Horie, 2012
 * Hikaru Okuizumi, 2012
 * Shuichi Yoshida, 2016
 * Hisaki Matsuura, 2019
 * Keiichiro Hirano, 2020